What Wireless Technology to Choose for Your Next Event

People attend events to connect. This simple truth should be the guiding light for every event professional who expects his or her work to bear fruit both during and after an event. By designing a strong system of wireless Internet connections that works well with your event, you can build a bridge between an audience and an event brand. With innovative event technologies, you not only enable full wireless Internet coverage for any venue, from stadiums to parking lots, but you also increase the quality of onsite interactions.

The key reasons to use wireless technologies at events

No matter where your event takes place, advanced event wireless solutions can add a great deal of flavor to it in the following ways:

Improve marketing benefits. Wireless communication can make attendance experiences smarter, which promises better engagement with marketing offers. For instance, through event app capabilities, such as personalised recommendations, event professionals can better target the audience during an event.

Increase data transfer speed. Whether it relates to team communication or interactions between attendees, it’s common decency today to provide people with a strong system for data exchange. Technologies like WiFi Direct based on device-to-device communication can support fast data throughput.

Keep event data safe. Top-notch Internet technologies help enhance the quality of connectivity between your staff and emergency services. This means that if an unexpected challenge emerges, with 5G or other progressive wireless technology, you’ll be able to solve it on the spot.

Accelerate onsite registration and tracking processes. Through R.F.I.D. and face recognition technologies, check-ins can be handled much faster than you likely think. Furthermore, through embedded tags, event organisers can easily track attendees’ behavior in real time.

Types of wireless technologies for events

Event wireless technology is perpetually evolving based on what connectivity capabilities different meetings and events can embrace. We’ve compiled the list of tools that you can leverage at an event to keep attendees wired—without actually using wire:

5G network

Fully immersive, the new type of connectivity that 5G networks will provide in the very near future should definitely have a huge impact on how people communicate at events. Higher bandwidth and better event data protection are 5G’s fundamental benefits. It’s expected that upload and download speeds, as well as data transfer speeds, will soon be reaching 10Gbps. This means a lot for the events industry since 5G event planners will now be able to focus on content and its customisation rather than connectivity itself. From live streaming to VR sessions, the list of interactive opportunities for attendees continues to grow longer.

Mesh networks

Mesh networks are wireless, decentralised LANs with interconnected nodes that can be rerouted and configured, enabling foolproof onsite connectivity. Basically, mesh networks represent a custom set of Wi-Fi stations that can be placed in different spots across your venue. No matter how many devices are connected or how far attendees move away from Wi-Fi stations, there’s a very low chance of connectivity interruptions as mesh networks are self-healing and self-configuring.

R.F.I.D.

Improving event attendance experiences through radio signals is another popular wireless technology trend. Through the establishment of communication between a tag and a reader, Radio Frequency Identification (R.F.I.D.) helps check the guests in as fast as possible while also opening up new possibilities for attendee tracking. At the event registration stage, you can simply provide guests with name badges that have trackable tags—the technology the GEVME onsite team implemented at the Money 20/20 Asia event. In addition, R.F.I.D. tags can also be embedded in wristbands, plastic cards, or any other objects that attendees carry.

Wearables

These days, you can literally put effective wireless technologies on any person who attends your event. Basically, everything that people use in their everyday lives, from watches to shirts, can be aligned with smart tech tools. For instance, you can give a presentation using a handy armband synced with a computer, rather than a clicker, and smart headphones with simultaneous translation capabilities to help attendees establish deals, even if they don’t speak the same language with their potential partners…and the list of new capabilities goes on and on.

How to make the choice of wireless technology for your event

The landscape of the wireless tools available to set up a successful event can be huge or can embrace only one single technology. To get everything lined up perfectly, you don’t need to apply “the longer X, the more Y” rule. Sometimes it’s enough to go with one effective connectivity solution. Here’s the short checklist of steps you should take to choose the right wireless technology for a given event:

Determine the size of your audience. Depending on the number of people attending your event, you’ll need specific bandwidth, number of devices, etc. You’ll find many calculators that will help you make a precise bandwidth estimate for your audience and that will also help you decide how many apps/wearables/tags you’ll need to provide.

Consider venue specifications. Every event location has specific connectivity requirements that should be considered. For instance, mesh networks can be used effectively with indoor spaces if you build a comprehensive map of APs and set mesh routes accordingly. For outdoor events, Wi-Fi on the Fly technology can be a good solution.

Set priorities. There’s no event planner in the world who wouldn’t want to make an event ideal. Still, there is always some risk that things could go wrong at some point. The best strategy is targeting the key priorities instead of spreading your focus across all kinds of small details. For example, if you power a large-scale event and want to make the best impression in terms of onsite check-in, explore good R.F.I.D. solutions or self-registration tools.

Conclusion

The choice of wireless technology for events is basically a choice of the style in which event interactions will be shaped. To maximise connectivity capabilities on site, event planners should understand how their audience can make the most out of event attendance through meaningful communication.

GEVME is the fully integrated platform that makes your event lifecycle happy. With advanced apps for each event management process, the platform helps you craft a custom event toolkit. Request a DEMO to experience the automation of website development, online registration, onsite check-in and related services.